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Drug testing surprise

Why does this fact show that welfare applicants are less likely to use drugs? What it shows is that people understand they have to clean up or lose their benefits. Fallacy of logic.

Politician uses drug testing for political points (and possible personal gain), easily defeatable drug test results in apparent lower drug use among those tested.

Random testing, as Tessa said is the only effective form.

But it doesn't LOOK as good to those who don't know the realities of the situation.

Which is why he did it in the first place. (If you ignore his interest in the company DOING the testing)
 
I believe your right to privacy ends at the point at which you are breaking the law. Even though I may disagree with the law to some extent, drug use is illegal. I don't really see random testing as a qualifier for employment or receipt of government money for personal subsistence as a violation of any right. It's a mandatory obligation for a voluntary process.

Remember that they are violating your privacy in order to determine you are breaking the law. No suspicion is required. You are presumed guilty and required to prove your innocence.

I consider employment to be an exchange of value for value. Not an indenture.
 
How exactly do you test a coporation? Do you test only the CEO, board of directors, rank and file.... If you find someone who tested positive do you punish just him or the entire corporation? So, you test some Corporate Officers of Company A, they test positive, subsidy taken away, corporation loses business because they lost their leaders and corporation lost its reputation, company goes under, more people unemployed and on welfare, then the testing cycle starts again.

So TESTING the rich is a job killer too?
 
What gets me, and is often overlooked by pundants is this. If the point of testing is to punish users by removing their benefits, how is that any different than simply taking benefits away from capable people? If the goal is to remove those that are unworthy, then do so, and we don't need drug testing to do this. Just manpower. That said, and here's the rub.. What about the children? What aboutt he kiddies of all these abusers, and fraudulent recipients of welfare dough? Regardless of why thy are removed, don't the children still suffer? This is the argument from progressives, and even some moderate republicans for decades, and to some extent the argument has merit. Whehn we remove benefits of welfare recipients, what we're really doing is taking away (in some quantifiable measure) from the children of these people.

My question is. If we all agree that we as tax payers shouldn't be paying benefits to capable, and able-bodied people, and only to those that are deserving, how do we resolve the moral obligation to protect the children?

By the way.. I'm a conservative, but I've never really heard a good argument for how we stop the waste, abuse and fraud, and yet still find a way to protect those that are simply victims of this circumstance? The same can be said about the illegal immigration issue, and that MOST illegal immigrants in this country are actually hard working, and notwithstanding the illegal act of coming to America, are themselves honest people willing to do what it takes for their families.. How do we fix this conundrum?


Tim-
 
Remember that they are violating your privacy in order to determine you are breaking the law. No suspicion is required. You are presumed guilty and required to prove your innocence.

I consider employment to be an exchange of value for value. Not an indenture.

I think in the case of drug testing welfare recipients, they are not drug testing for criminal purposes. It is more likely that they would just require somebody enter a rehabilitation program before they are eligible for benefits instead of criminalizing them and only making things harder on the public and not really solving any problems. If this were a screening to find out who is breaking the law and who is not, I agree, it would be extremely unconstitutional.
 
Why? In what way would spending all that money on unnecessary tests benefit you?

Its not to benefit me or her...hopefully it benefits the user by giving them an incentive to stop using so they could be productive on their own
 
Why? In what way would spending all that money on unnecessary tests benefit you?

Maybe you don't pay taxes, but I do. I am very concerned with where my tax money is going because I work hard for it. I know for a fact that there are many many many people on welfare that are not utilizing the benefits to better their lives. Just as I would not hand a bum on the street $20 to go buy a dime sack and a six pack, I would not want my taxes going towards those kinds of habits either.
 
Let's be honest: the point of doing it is to humiliate people who are already down on their luck and to score political points with right wingers. Why else would you drug test welfare recipients but not other recipients of state funds, like contractors who operate heavy machinery? Or legislators? Or the governor and his staff?
 
What gets me, and is often overlooked by pundants is this. If the point of testing is to punish users by removing their benefits, how is that any different than simply taking benefits away from capable people? If the goal is to remove those that are unworthy, then do so, and we don't need drug testing to do this. Just manpower. That said, and here's the rub.. What about the children? What aboutt he kiddies of all these abusers, and fraudulent recipients of welfare dough? Regardless of why thy are removed, don't the children still suffer? This is the argument from progressives, and even some moderate republicans for decades, and to some extent the argument has merit. Whehn we remove benefits of welfare recipients, what we're really doing is taking away (in some quantifiable measure) from the children of these people.

My question is. If we all agree that we as tax payers shouldn't be paying benefits to capable, and able-bodied people, and only to those that are deserving, how do we resolve the moral obligation to protect the children?

By the way.. I'm a conservative, but I've never really heard a good argument for how we stop the waste, abuse and fraud, and yet still find a way to protect those that are simply victims of this circumstance? The same can be said about the illegal immigration issue, and that MOST illegal immigrants in this country are actually hard working, and notwithstanding the illegal act of coming to America, are themselves honest people willing to do what it takes for their families.. How do we fix this conundrum?


Tim-

Everybody always says, "think of the children". With all of the able people collecting tax money to live, do you think these children are already not being "victimized"? I think forcing a little accountibility onto these families as a whole will motivate the parents to be better at being parents while also teaching the children a valuable lesson about working hard for what you have. There will always be "victims" in every reform, but if the end result is that everything improves for everyone on both sides in the long run, then people need to learn to just suck it up and do what is right whether you want to or not.
 
Let's be honest: the point of doing it is to humiliate people who are already down on their luck and to score political points with right wingers. Why else would you drug test welfare recipients but not other recipients of state funds, like contractors who operate heavy machinery? Or legislators? Or the governor and his staff?

If you really think that, then you have some issues. It is amazing that there are so many people out there with such an ignorant short sighted view of how things work.

Have you stopped to think that all of the people you used as examples actually work a job to earn their money except for the welfare recipients?
 
If you really think that, then you have some issues. It is amazing that there are so many people out there with such an ignorant short sighted view of how things work.

Have you stopped to think that all of the people you used as examples actually work a job to earn their money except for the welfare recipients?

So the key distinction for drug testing is employment? Why would that be the case? Personally, as a tax payer in Florida, I'd rather see the guy operating the road grader piss in a cup than the guy who got laid off from the construction firm.
 
Everybody always says, "think of the children". With all of the able people collecting tax money to live, do you think these children are already not being "victimized"? I think forcing a little accountibility onto these families as a whole will motivate the parents to be better at being parents while also teaching the children a valuable lesson about working hard for what you have. There will always be "victims" in every reform, but if the end result is that everything improves for everyone on both sides in the long run, then people need to learn to just suck it up and do what is right whether you want to or not.

I don't disagree. As I said, I'm a conservative through and through, however, this is the argument. So the answer is to break a few eggs to make an omlet.. Ok, I can dig that, but the fact still remains that there will indeed be quite a few eggs being broken, and the kiddies will be the eggs that will be broken. How does the state deal with that? Do we take them away from poor parents that are unwilling to work, or drug users that smoke weed, and sometimes go without milk, or food for their families.. You make it sound like only a few will be hurt, but I suspect that this endemic problem of the last 40 years of entitlement spending has far more reprecussions than either you or I can imagine.

That said, if we can deal with the pain, and there will be a ton of it getting off this entitlement mentality, then yes, in the long run our nation and its people will be far better off. But politics isn't played in the long term. We play that game here in the US every two years.. You can't fix this problem politically in two years..

So, purely from a political sci standpoint, what is the solution. How do you sell this to the American people, and have them stay focused long enough to make it work?


Tim-
 
So the key distinction for drug testing is employment? Why would that be the case? Personally, as a tax payer in Florida, I'd rather see the guy operating the road grader piss in a cup than the guy who got laid off from the construction firm.

Where did I say the key distinction for drug testing is emplyment? I pointed out that you are comparing apples to oranges. A person who is earning their own money should be of no concern to you as a taxpayer. The people who run the companies that own the road grader and employ the guy operating it likely do make him piss in a cup. And it costs you nothing as a taxpayer (beyond what is already budgeted for public employees) so your argument is completely irrelevant. A person on Welfare is simply collecting public money. The guy who got laid off from the construction firm is likely actively looking for another job. None of this is designed to target these kinds of people, so again, your argument is irrelevant. It is designed to target people who simply do not work and abuse the system. If you think the only people on welfare are hard working people who are victims of circumstance, then you are not educated enough on this topic to be having this discussion.
 
No, I would not be that big of a jerk. Live and let live.

If I'm on the highway and I see a guy on a bike weaving in and out of traffic, driving between lanes, speeding, popping wheelies, etc. I am damn sure calling the cops. He is posing a risk to himself and other drivers and that threat should be taken seriously. It isn't about being a jerk, it's about recognizing a legitmate risk to the health and safety of others. Your rights end at the point where they threaten the rights, health, or safety of another, IMO.
 
I don't disagree. As I said, I'm a conservative through and through, however, this is the argument. So the answer is to break a few eggs to make an omlet.. Ok, I can dig that, but the fact still remains that there will indeed be quite a few eggs being broken, and the kiddies will be the eggs that will be broken. How does the state deal with that? Do we take them away from poor parents that are unwilling to work, or drug users that smoke weed, and sometimes go without milk, or food for their families.. You make it sound like only a few will be hurt, but I suspect that this endemic problem of the last 40 years of entitlement spending has far more reprecussions than either you or I can imagine.

That said, if we can deal with the pain, and there will be a ton of it getting off this entitlement mentality, then yes, in the long run our nation and its people will be far better off. But politics isn't played in the long term. We play that game here in the US every two years.. You can't fix this problem politically in two years..

So, purely from a political sci standpoint, what is the solution. How do you sell this to the American people, and have them stay focused long enough to make it work?


Tim-

I think in the event that we mandated drug tests and had some concrete consequences for violating the terms and conditions of public benefits there would be far less of these broken eggs than you think. Yes it will take a few "examples" before people start getting the hint, but I think that, even in our silly society that can't learn to stop texting and driving, the effect will not be to the extreme that you are referring to. Simply the fear of consequence will be enough for many people to change.... I hope.

The real solution to all of the problems we have is education. Not simply book smarts, but a full all out education.
 
I think in the event that we mandated drug tests and had some concrete consequences for violating the terms and conditions of public benefits there would be far less of these broken eggs than you think. Yes it will take a few "examples" before people start getting the hint, but I think that, even in our silly society that can't learn to stop texting and driving, the effect will not be to the extreme that you are referring to. Simply the fear of consequence will be enough for many people to change.... I hope.

The real solution to all of the problems we have is education. Not simply book smarts, but a full all out education.

Nice answer, but it doesn't really answer my question. We have a society now that is approaching 47% on the government dole in some fashion. How do you take that away, politically speaking? Even if you were somehow able to find some majority of consensus among the current crop of politicians, what's to stop the next crop from coming in and promising the goodies back to those lazy constituent voters?

What is it now? 50 million families on food stamps? Try and take that away from the 50 million as a politician, and see where it gets you? The only way I see it happening is in term limits, and an enforcable (With real teeth) oversight body that oversees corruption within our government. The oversight body would need to be randomly selected citizens (Like juries) that are selected to serve on this committee (With full pay) for a durational period that aggressively protects the American interests in a stable, honest government. No more congressional oversight of congress (An oxymoron). What we need is real people with common sense looking out for all the rest of us.

Right now, our entire sysetm is run by 535 innately corruptable individuals with only their own interests taking center stage!


Just my opinion.. But we can't begin to fix Washington unless we take seriously how inherantly corruptable our system of government has become.


Tim-
 
drug screening has been abused to the point that i'd like to see it banned unless court ordered on an individual basis.

no business needs to know if an office worker smoked a doob over the weekend. if the worker's performance sucks, fire them. if it doesn't, don't.
 
Just curious. How does a corporation piss in a bottle?

Good question. Corporations are legally citizens of the US. I'd say it is incumbent upon them to come up with a satisfactory method. In the meantime I imagine corporations will piss on the environment, registered voters, workers and the Constitution.

"Pissin' in the wind
and it's blown' on all our friends" ~ Jerry Jeff Walker
 
Anyone can pass a drug test if you are given advance notice.All it takes is a small bottle and friends who do not use illegal drugs because most piss test places have you go into a small bathroom and close the door to urinate into a bottle. So the article only proves that their testing measures are flawed. If they were smart they would have someone watch you fill the cup up or at least have security pat you down to make sure that you do not have any bottles on you.

I thought they checked the temperature of the urine to make sure it is fresh.
 
Helix said:
no business needs to know if an office worker smoked a doob over the weekend. if the worker's performance sucks, fire them. if it doesn't, don't.

You've never worked with or for an insurance corporation, have you?

If the negative externalities for recreational drug users didn't exist, I doubt it'd be a concern at all. I highly doubt that Bill Gates or Larry Ellison give a damn what you do in your spare time.
 
drug screening has been abused to the point that i'd like to see it banned unless court ordered on an individual basis.

no business needs to know if an office worker smoked a doob over the weekend. if the worker's performance sucks, fire them. if it doesn't, don't.

It isn't really that simple. If that worker is driving on company time and causes an accident the company is liable. If that worker tests positive for illegal drugs there is a whole other host of legal issues that will come down on the company's shoulders. Drug use, so long as it remains illegal, is a huge liability for employers.
 
How exactly do you test a coporation? Do you test only the CEO, board of directors, rank and file.... If you find someone who tested positive do you punish just him or the entire corporation? So, you test some Corporate Officers of Company A, they test positive, subsidy taken away, corporation loses business because they lost their leaders and corporation lost its reputation, company goes under, more people unemployed and on welfare, then the testing cycle starts again.

Indeed. So what you are saying is that corporations aren't citizens after all. I totally agree.

We could piss test everyone on Wall Street. What do you think we'd find? Probably higher abuse rates than for people on the dole. No one is going to test white collar, white guys who work with money? Never happen.
 
Thanks, Ikari. Now I'm picturing you in a bathroom stall with a jar of piss trapped in your armpit.
 
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